24/7 Service Station for Gan Gan Rd
LAST EDITED
31 August 2026
A development application proposes a 24-hour Metro Petroleum service station at 146–148 Gan Gan Road. The applicant's additional information lodged in July 2026, does not resolve the flood, contamination & traffic concerns.
STATUS
Under assessment
DETAILS
The proposal: Perception Planning, for Anna Bay Petroleum Pty Ltd, has applied to build a service station and “Pumped” convenience store with 100,000 litres of underground fuel storage, a drive-through on two vacant lots at 146–148 Gan Gan Road (DA 16-2026-233-1, also PAN-631447). Existing cafés are either side of it. The existing BP, 60 metres away, opens 5:00am to 9:00pm; a third outlet operates 3.3km away.
The site floods. Port Stephens DCP 2025 classifies the land as both Low Hazard Flood Storage and Flood Fringe — the two most sensitive categories in Council's framework. Natural ground sits about 700mm below the Flood Planning Level of 4.2m AHD. The applicant proposes to fill that gap, displacing an estimated 210m³ of flood storage. Its own modelling shows flood levels on neighbouring properties rising by up to 0.02m.
The traffic assessment missed the peak. Every figure derives from one week of counts commencing 10 March 2026 — no school holidays, no summer, no long weekend. The applicant's own Social Impact Assessment concedes it: “Holiday demand was not modelled in the Traffic Assessment, which is considered a limitation of the assessment.”
No demonstrated need. Council's own 2024 Anna Bay Liveability Survey asked residents, in an open question with no prompt list, what they would like to see change. Of 345 substantive responses, not one nominated a service station or fuel outlet.
WHY IT MATTERS
Fuel and water do not stay separated. Anna Bay sits on sand with a shallow water table draining to sensitive coastal waterways. Putting 100,000 litres of fuel underground on land Council classifies as Flood Storage, above a water table 1.6 metres down, creates a contamination pathway that cannot be undone once it is used.
Filling flood storage moves water onto other people's land. Flood storage is not spare space — it is where floodwater goes. Filling 210m³ of it does not make the water disappear; it relocates it. Small numbers on a plan are not small when they arrive at a doorstep.
Traffic and emergency access. Gan Gan Road is one lane each way with kerbside parking on both sides, and it is the route to the beaches. Residents already describe holiday gridlock “from the BP through to the roundabout”, with no chance of getting an emergency vehicle through. Traffic was raised in 97% of submissions — and it is the one condition the applicant's traffic count was not taken during.
Village character and local business. A 24-hour fuel outlet with a drive-through and an illuminated pylon sign, between two small cafés, is not what Council's own survey says residents want in the village centre — and it puts at commercial risk the two businesses already providing it.
Precedent. If Council accepts that a spill containment bund is not “storage”, that a stormwater model failing its own targets nevertheless meets them, and that contamination testing can be completed after consent rather than before it, those positions become available to every future applicant on flood-prone land in this LGA.
STCA POSITION
STCA objects to DA 16-2026-233-1 and asks Port Stephens Council to refuse consent.
We are not opposed to development in Anna Bay. We are opposed to hazardous fuel storage, on flood-prone land, with an incomplete risk assessment, where an existing service station already meets local demand.
Our formal objection sets out nine independent grounds for refusing the proposal.
STCA ACTION
STCA has:
Reviewed the full DA and all technical reports, including the further-information tranche lodged 17–20 July 2026.
Lodged a detailed formal objection setting out nine independent grounds for refusal, each anchored to a specific clause of the LEP, DCP 2025 or the relevant SEPP, and evidenced from the applicant's own documents.
Helped coordinate the community petition, which reached 438 signatures, and distributed flyers across Anna Bay.
Prepared a technical note on fuel tanker turning movements at the site frontage, and presentation materials for the determination meeting.
Written to Council separately seeking a workshop on the absence of a transport and parking strategy for Anna Bay.
WHAT CAN I DO?
Residents can:
1. Lodge a submission before Friday 14 August 2026.This is the most useful thing you can do, and it takes fifteen minutes.
Email council@portstephens.nsw.gov.au, or lodge through Council's DA Tracker.
Quote DA 16-2026-233-1 (PAN-631447), 146–148 Gan Gan Road, Anna Bay.
State at the top that you object and ask Council to refuse consent. Include your full name and address — anonymous submissions carry no weight.
Write in your own words. Twenty identical letters count for less than twenty different ones. Say what you see on Gan Gan Road, what flooding does to your street, what a 24-hour outlet would mean for you.
If you objected in May, lodge a further submission on the July information.
Submissions are open access information under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 and are published on Council's DA Tracker.
2. Write to your Councillors. They decide this application, and none attended the pre-DA meetings at which Council's original safety advice was set aside.
3. Tell your neighbours. Many residents do not know the application has been amended and re-notified.
4. Attend the Council meeting. We will publicise the date. Numbers in the gallery matter.
TIMELINE
To be advised — Council assessment report and determination. STCA will publicise the meeting date.
14 August 2026 — Submissions closed on the amended application.
Late July 2026 — STCA and individual member objections lodged on that further information.
17–20 July 2026 — Applicant lodges further information.
14 July 2026 — Groundwater monitoring wells installed; groundwater struck at 1.6m.
9 June 2026 — Council issues a Request for Further Information.
28 May 2026 — EcoNetwork Port Stephens lodges its objection.
14–28 May 2026 — Public notification. 91 submissions and a 438-signature petition; two submissions in support.
October 2025 — Pre-DA meeting 2. Council accepts the applicant's hazard reclassification and gives support in principle. The community is not consulted.
August 2025 — Pre-DA meeting 1. Council officers advise that service stations are “sensitive and hazardous development … unsuitable within flood storage/fringe areas”